strange sort of hotel

It’s all about context.  My hotel here in Yumbe is fine, absolutely fine.  So I don’t eat here anymore because there is either no food, no service, or they never come back after you ask what they have.  The power is variable, much like Haiti there is no mains power here, so generators and batteries are vital.  The hot water is correlated to the power, so is therefore also variable (but I’m used to cold showers now).  They have internet, when there is power, but it is slow and the signal is very weak.  But really it’s fine, absolutely fine.  The sheets are clean(ish), my room has a fan (when there is power) and I have a lovely lady who does my washing and folds my clothes so carefully.  And of course it is very cheap.

If I were paying good money it would be different.  But I am on the edge of one of the world’s largest refugee settlements, people here have fled a violent and vicious civil war, lost friends and relatives, left their livelihoods and possessions behind, walked for days to get here, reliant on the compassion and kindness of Uganda and its people, and of course aid from the West.

So yes, its fine, absolutely fine.

We are based in the middle of ‘Zone 1’ of the Bidi Bidi refugee settlement, of which there are 5 zones, each with many villages.  Yes, villages.  Whilst this was once the scene from TV; acres of tarpaulin with the big blue initials ‘UNHCR’, open fires, babies crying, long lines for food, a health-worker, the latrine (or not), it is not now.  Since its inception in 2016, it has come a long way and is now a network of fully functioning villages, with markets, schools, churches and health centres.  There is an economy.  But of course it is a subsistence economy, so is also still heavily reliant on the Aid Agencies.

It is all ‘controlled’ by the OPM – the Office of the Prime Minister (of Uganda).  When you think of Uganda, maybe you think of Idi Amin.  Considered one of the most brutal dictators in recent memory, he was President for just 8 years in the 70s.  The current guy, Museveni, has been in power for 36 years, so as you might imagine, he likes control.  The OPM is not really running the settlement, the NGOs are.  Anyway, apparently at the OPM Centre has a ‘hotel’, my driver tells me.  So I I’ll stay there then, I say, it will save the 40-minute journey back and forth to my hotel in Yumbe.  “Yes”, he says.

The next morning I am collected by a different driver.  I tell him of my plan to stay at the hotel in OPM Centre.  “No” he says, “they do not have people staying.”  Strange hotel.